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The Scottish Government recognises the difficulties facing Scotland’s cities and businesses as a result of the global pandemic as highlighted in the Centre for Cities report. The Scottish Government has provided more than £4.4 billion of business support since March 2020. This includes COVID-19 non-domestic rates reliefs which have saved businesses around £1.6bn in reduced rates bills since 1 April 2020. In addition last year, we awarded £2m directly to our cities through the City Centre Recovery Fund, to kick-start their recovery.

The Omicron variant in late 2021 further impacted on city centre recovery and has exacerbated the economic challenges faced by our city centres and their businesses. As such, the Cabinet Secretary for Finance announced an additional £3m of funding this financial year through the City Centre Recovery Fund on 10 February. These monies will support all seven cities build sustainable recovery for their centres and their businesses and will take forward the priorities of the City Centre Recovery Task Force.

The Scottish Government has an objective to determine Electricity Act section 36 applications within nine months, where possible. It is important to clarify that this timeline is dependent on the submission of a complete, fit for purpose application that fully addresses all issues raised by Scottish Ministers and consultees during the pre-application period including the scoping process. That is why we are encouraging applicants to engage early with both the regulator and relevant stakeholders.

Details of the consenting process for offshore wind developments can be found here:

https://www.gov.scot/publications/marine-scotland-consenting-licensing-manual-offshore-wind-wave-tidal-energy-applications/

The Scottish Government supports farmers during the ongoing UK-wide avian influenza outbreak through the provision of timely advice and guidance to poultry and other captive bird keepers on risks, legal requirements and biosecurity. This information is made available through social media, news releases and on gov.scot, as these continue to be vital tools in protecting birds.

The Scottish Government has reminded keepers that the Avian Influenza Prevention Zone (AIPZ), and associated robust biosecurity and housing measures, remain in place across Scotland. These measures include all bird keepers keeping their birds indoors or keeping them otherwise separate from wild birds.

The Scottish Government has also made an additional £1 million of funding available to the Animal and Plant Health Agency (APHA). This is to cover the agency’s additional expenses associated with tackling the current outbreak.

Compensation is paid for birds humanely euthanased as part of our disease response in line with valuation tables, which are updated regularly by the Animal and Plant Health Agency on behalf of the Scottish Government. The Scottish Government do not compensate for any dead or visibly ill birds, which is in line with the policy in England and Wales.

If a larger poultry or captive bird business is in a disease control zone, there may be trade issues associated with regionalisation. The Scottish Government work with the Defra Market Access and Veterinary Trade Facilitation teams, who liaise with poultry industry stakeholders and the APHA Centre for International Trade to understand and address issues and priorities for poultry exports. Defra Market Access also liaise with British Embassy colleagues globally to answers trade related queries from Central Competent Authorities, provide updates to third country trading partners and seek clarity on terms of trade where required. The Scottish Government will liaise with the National Farmers Union Scotland (NFUS) and the British Egg Industry Council (BEIC) to support affected businesses where required.

We announced on 14 February an agreement with the UK Government to deliver two Green Freeports in Scotland, working on an equal partnership basis. A package of reserved and devolved support will be available in the selected Green Freeports ensuring that Scotland can build globally competitive industrial clusters in the green industries of the future, deliver a just transition to net-zero, and create new high-quality, well-paid employment opportunities delivering Fair Work, including payment of the real living wage.

A competitive bidding process will be launched soon, with the winners to be announced later this year. As this will be a competitive, open and transparent process, I cannot prejudge this by commenting on possible locations.

Offshore wind development and operation provides a strong route for a Just Transition, helping high carbon sectors and staff transition into low carbon activity. The forthcoming pipeline of ScotWind projects has the potential to transform the energy sector and economy in Scotland, including the potential to diversify our existing industries and generate thousands of new jobs. We therefore welcome the public commitment made by developers who have been awarded lease options to invest a combined £25bn in the Scottish supply chain via ScotWind projects, and their aspiration to invest a further £10bn as indicated in their ‘high ambition’ statements. We need to make the most of, and focus on, the opportunities from this investment and for diversification and skills transfer from oil and gas to drive forward offshore wind skills development. The knowledge and experience of the oil and gas sector, and its supply chain, will be a differentiator for Scotland in developing floating offshore wind technologies, in line with our commitment to a just transition.

In addition, the introduction of Supply Chain Development Statements by Crown Estate Scotland will help to release wide ranging economic benefits across Scotland. We expect the successful ScotWind projects to be fully engaging with the domestic supply chain and to work in collaboration with the public sector and with communities to ensure their commitments come to fruition.

Renewable energy is a crucial element of our transition to deliver a net-zero economy and we are determined to maximise the economic opportunity for the Scottish supply chain from our offshore wind potential. We remain fully committed to using every lever within our devolved competence to support and grow the offshore wind supply chain here in Scotland.

To demonstrate this, applicants to the ScotWind leasing round were required to submit a Supply Chain Development Statement (SCDS) setting out the anticipated level and location of supply chain impact. Developers can update their Statements throughout the development phase. Failure to deliver the commitments laid out in the final SCDS can trigger remedies ranging from financial penalties to an inability to progress to seabed lease.

The introduction of Supply Chain Development Statements demonstrates how serious the Scottish Government is about holding developers to account if they do not honour their supply chain commitments. We fully expect developers and Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) to be engaging with the domestic supply chain from the outset and to work in collaboration with the public sector and with communities to ensure that those commitments come to fruition. We have also been calling for, and welcome, the additional conditionality required by the UK Government for supply chain commitments in Contracts for Difference (CfD) rounds.

Scottish Government is in discussion with the Scottish Funding Council to explore the resource needs it requires to fulfil its mission now and into the future. This includes how we can best support SFC in 2022-23 financial year.

We will continue to work with the Scottish Funding Council to ensure that it has the capacity it needs to operate effectively.

I meet jointly with the Chairs and Chief Executives of both agencies to discuss progress in collaborative working on skills every 6 weeks.

This is supported by an assurance group, chaired by Senior Civil Servants and including the Senior Responsible Officers for all collaborative skills projects.

A Shared Outcomes Framework that defines the collaborative projects, sets out strategic objectives, key milestones, deliverables, impacts and measures is currently being developed by the Scottish Government and both agencies to enable more effective monitoring and reporting of joint action in this area .

Letters of Guidance are issued by the Scottish Government to its public bodies annually. The letters set clear Ministerial expectations on our priorities for the year ahead.

The letters to both Skills Development Scotland and to the Scottish Funding Council (SFC) will have a clear emphasis on the need for shared working on skills planning; recognising the commitment as set out in the Scottish Government’s response to the SFC Review of Coherence and Sustainability to build capacity and a more systematic approach to the way we collectively plan coherent tertiary education and skills provision and investment, so that it responds better to current and future needs. The Letters of Guidance will draw on the Shared Outcomes Framework that is currently being developed and which will set out clearly the intent for collaborative projects, connected to the National Performance Framework and the National Strategy for Economic Transformation priorities, and include milestones, objectives, impacts and measures for each of these projects.

We expect that the letters will be issued in Spring 2022 once the budget for 2022-23 has been approved by parliament.